Appointment of Ojhas.
The mode of succession to the dignity of an Ojha varies in different places. In Mirzapur the son is usually educated by his father, and taught the various spells and modes of incantation. But this is not always the case; and here at the present time the institution is in a transition stage. South of the Son we have the Baiga, who usually acts as an Ojha also; and he is invariably drawn from the aboriginal races. Further north he is known as Nâya (Sanskrit nâyaka) or “leader.” Further north, again, as we leave the hilly country and enter the completely Brâhmanized Gangetic valley, he changes into the regular Ojha, who is always a low-class Brâhman.
In one instance which came under my own notice, the Nâya of the village had been an aboriginal Kol, and he before his death announced that “the god had sat on the head” of a Brâhman candidate for the office, who was duly initiated, and is now the recognized village Ojha. This is a good example of the way in which Brâhmanism annexes and absorbs the demonolatry of the lower races. This, too, enables us to correct a statement which has been made even by such a careful inquirer as Mr. Sherring when he says[48]—“Formerly the Ojha was always a Brâhman; but his profession has become so lucrative that sharp, clever, shrewd men in all the Hindu castes have taken to it.” There can be no question that the process has been the very reverse of this, and that the early Ojhas were aboriginal sorcerers, and that their trade was taken over by the Brâhman as the land became Hinduized.
In Hoshangâbâd the son usually succeeds his father, but a Bhomka does not necessarily marry into a Bhomka family, nor does it follow that “once a Bhomka, always a Bhomka.” On the contrary, the position seems to be the result of the special favour of the godling of the particular village in which he lives; and if the whole of the residents emigrate in a body, then the godling of the new village site will have to be consulted afresh as to the servant whom he chooses to attend upon him.
“If a Bhomka dies or goes away, or a new village is established, his successor is appointed in the following way. All the villagers assemble at the shrine of Mutua Deo, and offer a black and white chicken to him. A Parihâr, or priest, should be enticed to grace the solemnity and make the sacrifice, but if that cannot be done the oldest man in the assembly does it. Then he sets a wooden grain measure rolling along the line of seated people, and the man before whom it stops is marked out by the intervention of the deity as the new Bhomka.”[49]
It marks perhaps some approximation to Hinduism that the priest, when inspired by the god, wears a thread made of the hair of a bullock’s tail, unless this is based on the common use of thread or hair as a scarer of demons, or is some token or fetish peculiar to the race. At the same time the non-Brâhmanic character of the worship is proved by the fact that the priest, when in a state of ecstasy, cannot bear the presence of a cow, or Brâhman. “The god,” they say, “would leave their heads if either of these came near.”
On one occasion, when Sir C. A. Elliott saw the process of exorcism, the men did not actually revolve when “the god came on his head.” He covered his head up well in a cloth, leaving space for the god to approach, and in this state he twisted and turned himself rapidly, and soon sat down exhausted. We shall see elsewhere that the head is one of the chief spirit entries, and the top of the head is left uncovered in order to let the spirit make its way through the sutures of the skull. Then from the pit of his stomach he uttered words which the bystanders interpreted to direct a certain line of conduct for the sick man to pursue. “But perhaps the occasion was not a fair test, as the Parihâr strongly objected to the presence of an unbeliever, on the pretence that the god would be afraid to come before so great an official.” This has always been the standing difficulty in Europeans obtaining a practical knowledge of the details of rural sorcery, and when a performance of the kind is specially arranged, it will usually be found that the officiant performs the introductory rites with comparative success, but as it comes to the crucial point he breaks down, just as the ecstatic crisis should have commenced. This is always attributed to the presence of an unbeliever, however interested and sympathetic. The same result usually happens at spiritualistic séances, when anyone with even an elementary knowledge of physics or mechanics happens to be one of the audience.